It's sort of fascinating to see how science and technology (like the ultrasound) have completely transfigured how biological processes are conceptualized and experienced, but technology has always been a part of human history, from tool creation to atomic bombs, it's becoming increasingly apparent that technology is just as much human as it can be 'non-human'.
I had sort of an angry gut reaction when reading the Erikson piece since it started by saying that it was going to examine "historical and ideological trajectories that have made looking at the fetus via ultrasound a normal part of being pregnant for many women around the world,"(Erikson, 187) and then only look at Germany as a source of a "global" trend analysis--but the other texts sort of nuanced this and explored the contextual manifestations of similar technologies.
This piece, the specific examinations of contexts, is incredibly important as technology and globalization might work in tandem to universalize and erase, but it is also equally reductive to erase specific contextual navigation of globalization and its discontents. It's impossible to morally quantify this techno-universality, as instances such as the one seen in Gammeltoft's text: "the moral imperative in Vietnam to be happy and optimistic during pregnancy, it is not easy for pregnant women to explicitly voice fears and anxieties regarding the outcome of their pregnancies." (Gammeltoft, 144) Here, ultrasound gives the space for quelling these anxieties without receiving the social backlash for being 'unhappy' -- or does it? Did the presence of ultrasound incite a different kind of anxiety, one that requires constant checkups, creating a cycle of consumption as analyzed in Taylor's piece.
What kind of mechanisms of transformation do certain forms of technology create in specific local contexts? Local manifestations have threads that run globally, how do regimes of science create colonies of mind? Or does my desire to specify and determine the uniqueness of certain incidents actually stem from a technoscientific way of thinking that originates from a Euromasculinist Englightment way of being? Probably, but it's always fun to co-opt institutions of power and point them towards themselves (I know, I know, Audre Lorde and the master's tools, but a diversity of tactics could still be fruitful!)
I had sort of an angry gut reaction when reading the Erikson piece since it started by saying that it was going to examine "historical and ideological trajectories that have made looking at the fetus via ultrasound a normal part of being pregnant for many women around the world,"(Erikson, 187) and then only look at Germany as a source of a "global" trend analysis--but the other texts sort of nuanced this and explored the contextual manifestations of similar technologies.
This piece, the specific examinations of contexts, is incredibly important as technology and globalization might work in tandem to universalize and erase, but it is also equally reductive to erase specific contextual navigation of globalization and its discontents. It's impossible to morally quantify this techno-universality, as instances such as the one seen in Gammeltoft's text: "the moral imperative in Vietnam to be happy and optimistic during pregnancy, it is not easy for pregnant women to explicitly voice fears and anxieties regarding the outcome of their pregnancies." (Gammeltoft, 144) Here, ultrasound gives the space for quelling these anxieties without receiving the social backlash for being 'unhappy' -- or does it? Did the presence of ultrasound incite a different kind of anxiety, one that requires constant checkups, creating a cycle of consumption as analyzed in Taylor's piece.
What kind of mechanisms of transformation do certain forms of technology create in specific local contexts? Local manifestations have threads that run globally, how do regimes of science create colonies of mind? Or does my desire to specify and determine the uniqueness of certain incidents actually stem from a technoscientific way of thinking that originates from a Euromasculinist Englightment way of being? Probably, but it's always fun to co-opt institutions of power and point them towards themselves (I know, I know, Audre Lorde and the master's tools, but a diversity of tactics could still be fruitful!)
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